


Nights Like This

by katiewinchester



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, drunk!sergio, drunk!xabi, sad xabi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 15:39:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1515875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiewinchester/pseuds/katiewinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xabi's just won the world cup, but why isn't he celebrating?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nights Like This

_11 July 2010_  
  
Steven didn't even want to watch the Final. England wasn't playing, and he didn't really fancy watching another team win a trophy that had yet again eluded him. But Carra insisted that they sit down and watch their (friends and) former and current teammates, Xabi, Fernando, and Pepe, play.   
  
Of course, he was lying to himself. He really did want to see the match. If not solely for one man. Secretly, Steven wanted Spain to win just so that he could see Xabi smile. If anyone was going to be blessed with winning the World Cup, he wanted it to be Xabi Alonso.   
  
Though he'd never come out and said it, Steven was almost positive that Carra knew about him and Xabi. Or, about what could have been?   
  
He and Xabi had never officially gotten together, what with their wives and all, but they'd spent more than a few nights together. Sometimes after a match, they'd find their way back to one of their homes or maybe a hotel room, but it never got more serious than that (well, not that the two men would have admitted it if it did).   
  
Steven Gerrard was hopelessly in love with Xabi Alonso. He tried to tell himself he wasn't, but it was hard to suppress. If he wasn't busy, he'd watch Real Madrid matches just to check up on his ex-lover. Sometimes he'd imagine a life where they could have been together, but deep in his heart he knew that (maybe) everything happened for a reason. They spoke on the phone from time to time, but Steven never had the courage to tell Xabi what he'd been thinking. If he _had_ told Xabi how he felt, would the Spaniard have still moved to Real? Would it have been enough for him to stay?  
  
When the match started, Stevie's eyes followed the ball until it found the feet of one Xabi Alonso. From then on, Stevie's eyes never left the former Liverpool man. Xabi played well, and Stevie was hit with a burst of nostalgia.   
  
He and Carra watched tensely as Howard Webb handed out card after card. Both Englishmen shouted when a partially rowdy Dutch player was punished and clapped when the referee called something in favor of Spain.  
  
On any other occasion, Steven and Carra would rather have been shot before they were seen supporting the Spanish team, but they didn't really see themselves as Spanish supporters. More like, specific Spanish players supporters.   
  
It was disappointing that they couldn't see Pepe play, but they did enjoy watching Fernando play skillfully and Xabi as well.   
  
The constant stream of fouls and cards grew boring, and though the match had been going on for a little more than twenty minutes, Steven just wasn't as enthralled with the game as he could be, and he felt like standing up to grab a bitter or a bag of crisps. However, he stopped dead in his tracks, half-way between sitting on the couch and standing up, when he saw Nigel de Jong raise his foot to Xabi's chest. He could practically hear the thud as the boot made contact.   
  
The room went silent and everything ran in slow motion as Steven worriedly watched the replay and saw Xabi's face contort in pain as he fell to the ground, clutching his chest. His mind went into overdrive, thinking of all the possible outcomes of the situation.  
  
Carra was the first to say anything. "What the bloody hell was that?!" He stood up, nearly knocking his ale over, and began to curse Webb and Jong and the entire Dutch squad.   
  
Steven sucked in a breath he didn't realize he had been holding and resisted the urge to scream. His eyes were locked on Xabi's (thankfully) conscious form. He listened to the announcers who were just as shocked as he was.  
  
At first he was scared, but then when Howard Webb only presented Xabi's attacker with a yellow card, he exploded.  
  
"A bloody yellow card?! He's got to be joking! He was kicked in the bloody chest and it's only a bloody yellow?!" 

Carra and Steven shouted for a little while before relaxing and settling back it to their seats. Them screaming at the television wasn't going to change the events that had transpired, and besides, Xabi appeared to be okay. He rested on the ground for a while, but he did stand up and continue to play.   
  
"Wow, thank god he's okay," Carra noted. "That could have been really bad."  
  
"Yeah..." Steven replied, his mind racked with the horrible thought that Xabi could have been seriously injured.

* * *

After the game ended, and Spain was the declared the new champions of the world, Xabi got drunk. Like Euro 2008 drunk. (Though not as drunk as he would be at the Euro in 2012.)   
  
Teammates thought it was just because they'd won. They thought he was getting absolutely pissed as celebration. Really though, he'd gotten a call from Steven Gerrard.   
  
At the time of the call, he'd already started drinking, but once he hung up he knew he had a reason to continue his intoxication.  
  
He was standing with Fernando and Sergio when he heard his phone go off. He'd already gotten calls from his family, so he was just expecting another relative to give him their congratulations but the caller-ID said "Steven Gerrard". So not a relative.  
  
He stared blankly at the phone's screen before Sergio snatched it out of his hands.  
  
"If he was your cousin you would have picked up by now. Look, Nando, it's Stevie."  
  
"Here let me answer," Fernando didn't wait for either man to reply before he took the phone and pressed answer.   
  
"Hey, Steven is Fernando."  
  
The man on the other line had trouble hiding his disappointment.  
  
"I guess he doesn't want to talk to me, yeah?"  
  
"No, no, that's not it. I, uh-- Sergio took his phone."  
  
Fernando looked to Xabi who was waving at him, making gestures that told Fernando to hang up the phone, but he decided to ignore his friend.   
  
"Congrats, Fer, by the way."   
  
"Thanks, mate. So you want to talk to him?" Xabi gestured negatively. "Sure! He's right here. Beware, he's had a few drinks."  
  
Then he thrust the phone into Xabi's hand and he and Sergio ran off, leaving their friend to his ex(?).  
  
"Hello, Steven."  
  
"Hey, mate. I just wanted to congratulate you on the win." He sounded genuinely happy for Xabi.  
  
"Thanks." He was uncomfortable and it killed him that he was uncomfortable. He wanted more than anything, maybe even more than the World Cup championship, to be comfortable around Steven. For it to be like it used to be.  
  
"I didn't think you'd call," he told the Englishman.   
  
"Why not?" He sounded hurt.  
  
"Well, I _just_ left."   
  
"Yeah, but we promised we'd keep in touch."   
  
They had. He wasn’t lying. But Xabi didn't know if he could "keep in touch". For him, he either needed Steven in his life all the time or not at all. The in between was too painful, too real.  
  
"Oh, I wanted to ask if you were alright?"   
  
Xabi blinked a few times in confusion before responding.   
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Steven laughed. "When you got kicked? In the chest? Forget already?"  
  
"Oh, ha, yeah, I'm okay. Well, I have to go to the doctors to make sure it's not a broken rib, but I'm otherwise fine."  
  
"Well, I hope everything is fine."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"..."  
  
"..."  
  
"Anyway, Xabi, I'll let you get back to the festivities. Try not to get too pissed; the entire world is watching."  
  
Xabi let out a short laugh.   
  
"Yeah, thanks for calling." If he said the call didn't mean a lot to him, he would have been lying. Hearing  Steven's voice was like being told his team had won the World Cup; like winning two major trophies in a two year span. But it sucked. Talking to Steven shouldn't have made him so happy. They both have wives, children even. And yet, the one person who could make Xabi smile without fail was the man he left behind in Liverpool.  
  
"Alright then, I'll talk to you another time." The scouse said, and then quickly and quietly, "I miss you." And then he hung up.  
  
Sergio and Fernando chose that moment to return, asking what had happened, but they didn't get a response. Xabi was frozen. He had not been expecting Steven to say _that_.   
  
"Xab, what's got you like this? What happened?" Sergio asked, a hint of a slur to his voice.   
  
"Steven called."  
  
"We know that, _tonto_."  
  
"He... He said that he misses me."  
  
The pair went silent.  
  
"Yeah."   
  
In that moment, Xabi decided that he had to figure out a way to say 'screw you' to Steven Gerrard without actually saying it. He wanted to take out his frustration. He didn't want Steven to call him, on a day that should have been the happiest of his life (besides his wedding and the birth of his children, of course) and absolutely ruin it. Why did he have to say he missed him? Why?! Why did he have to open up that bridge? He knew Xabi felt the same way—how could he do that to him? Not on this day.   
  
The next time a waiter passed by with an assortment of drinks on a tray, Xabi drank half. He took a few shots and grabbed a beer, and he did exactly what Steven warned him not to do. He got pissed.  
  
"Hey, I know I'm not one to talk, but you should take it easy with those beers," Sergio suggested after Xabi downed his ale in one go.   
  
Yes, Sergio was also drunk, but he was not nearly as drunk as Xabi. 

“I’m fine, go away,” he insisted.

But Xabi wasn’t fine. He hurt. Badly. In his intoxicated state, all he wanted to do was call Steven back and tell him everything. Tell him that he loved him, that he missed him, that he’d give up everything for him.

And he almost did just that, but (thankfully) Fernando saw him pull out his phone and stopped him before he could do anything that he’d regret once he’d sobered up.

“Don’t be stupid,” Fernando commanded.

 _No more stupid than usual_ , Xabi thought.

* * *

 By the time the celebrations died down, it was nearly four in the morning. Xabi was still drunk. Unlike his fellow Spaniards, he hadn’t realized that if he stopped drinking, he’d stop being pissed.

Sergio found Xabi wandering the halls of their hotel room.

“What are you doing, mate?”

“I can’t open my door.” Xabi gestured to the lock-key, that normally would have worked, but Sergio noticed that it, somehow, had been split in half.

“You broke it, _tú idiota_.”

Xabi laughed.

“Christ, you’re still drunk. Why do you let him get to you so much?”

It was an innocent question. And an honest one. But Xabi wasn’t expecting for Steven to be mentioned again. Even if Sergio hadn’t directly said his name, Xabi knew exactly who he was referring to.

“Fuck off. Just let me stay in your room tonight. I can’t open my door,” he smiled hopefully, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Sergio knew that his last comment had hurt his friend, even in his drunken state.

“Alright, let’s go.”

He helped Xabi walk back to his hotel room. It was difficult considering that Xabi didn’t really help in the slightest.

“Come on, mate, use your legs. At least pretend like you want to get there!”

It took a few minutes but Sergio finally managed to get Xabi into his room.

“Okay, so you can just relax here while I go to the front desk and get you a new card.”

Xabi stood in the middle of the room, silently, for a bit, but then suddenly he stumbled to the bathroom and managed to make it to the toilet before he vomited. He moaned and immediately regretted everything that he’d had to drink. After he was sure that he’d puked all his guts out, he stood up and left the bathroom, deciding to fall onto the nearest bed. He dove underneath the covers, shrugged off his shirt, and immediately fell asleep once his head touched the pillow.

* * *

 When Fernando found his way back to his and Sergio’s room, he was planning on celebrating the match with his roommate. He was not expecting to see a shirtless Xabi Alonso in Sergio’s bed. His heart skipped for a second, when the unthinkable raced through his mind. _Are he and Sergio…?_

But all doubts vanished when Sergio immerged from the bathroom, fully clothes and brushing his teeth.

“Look who finally showed up,” he said smiling.

Fernando knew that if Sergio had been seeing other people behind his back, he would have at least had the decency to look guilty.

They were silent for a bit, before Fernando decided to ask the question he’d been thinking since he entered the room.

“So why is Xabi naked?”

“He’s not,” Sergio said with a laugh. “He crashed here because his room-key broke. I left to get it fixed and apparently, he made himself at home.”

“Oh.” Fernando looked to his friend’s sleeping form and then back to Sergio. “Do you think it was because of—“

“Yeah.”

“He’s going to ask me about it when I go back to Liverpool.”

“Yeah.”

“What should I say?”

Sergio thought for a moment. “Tell him to stop leading Xabi on. Tell him that he can’t just say things like that and then hang up. Tell him to make up his mind because if I see Xabi like this ever again, and it’s because of _Gerrard_ ,I’m going to kill him.”

Fernando bit his lip. “Yeah, alright…” He hated this. He hated seeing Xabi upset, because they were still friends, but he also didn’t want Steven to be upset. He just wanted his friends to work everything out. Or, if that wasn’t possible, to just ignore each other. It would be hard, but it would cause less heart break. Both men were married with loving wives and beautiful children. It was ridiculous of them to keep up the charade that they could still be in love and have everything be fine. It sucked and people got hurt, but, of course, Fernando understood their situation all too well. He looked to Xabi and then to Sergio and sighed. Things were never going to be perfect, he knew that.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this was okay. Let me know what you guys think. This is the first time I've ever written gerlonso so I'm not sure about this...


End file.
